Every once in a while…a post comes along that blows your mind and changes your life.
This post probably won’t be it. In fact, you might save time by not reading it.
But then again…maybe these are the greatest 6 time management tips your eyes will ever behold. Oh shoot…you have spent the time and have come this far, might as well stop wasting time and read them to figure it out!
1.Create Daily Goals and Prioritize the Top 5 Items
Do the important stuff first. Often that means doing the hard things first.
Be willing to stretch yourself to do the uncomfortable thing first in order to be successful. Become like water my website friend. Often that tweak can mean the difference between success or not.
This also means you need to evaluate your previous goals to see how effective they were. Learning from yesterday can make for a much better today.
2.Get 7-8 Hours of Sleep
I know this sounds crazy to some of you. More sleep seems a lot like less time. Au contraire mon ami.
One of the biggest reasons we are unproductive is a lack of focus and energy.
By getting sound sleep it will go a long way toward getting back that productivity. This sleep should be 7-8 uninterrupted hours in a dark, cool room. Don’t settle for less. You will literally ruin the next day.
Without sleep, it increases your level of the hormone cortisol, which spikes your insulin levels (another hormone) similar to a person with type 2 diabetes.
That is not good. Your whole day can be a mess and it can lead to those terrible midday crashes. Make your day more valuable and get some solid sleep.
3.Eat Healthy
In 1950 DuPont hired Dr. Alfred Pennington to find out why the traditional low-calorie diets were not working to help their employees lose fat.
Pennington put the DuPont executives on a high-fat, high-protein, low-carbohydrate (80 calories of carbs per meal) unrestricted-calorie diet.
Pennington believed that people can metabolize fat just fine but not carbohydrates as well no matter how you try to minimize carbs.
This process of fat and protein metabolizing to be used as energy later became known as gluconeogenesis and also a similar chemical process called Ketosis.
Majority of the DuPont employees all ended up losing fat and were able to keep it off. Pennington also mentioned that employees had a great deal of energy and a higher sense of well-being.
4.Start your Day with Exercise
While maintaining your 8-10 hours of sleep is a must, it is also valuable to get your workout done in the morning.
This translates into a lot more energy throughout the day and more fat loss. The genetic disposition of a human shows that they have more cortisol to work with in the morning.
As the day wears on, your body naturally wants to do less. Countering this can have negative effects on your cortisol levels by shooting it up in the evening.
I would try to work out in the morning or afternoon.
Another nice benefit of the morning workout is that your body has a lower number of carbs to burn and more triglycerides or fatty acids to use as energy.
So your body goes straight to the fat source for energy, instead of the blood sugar that is circulating your blood stream.
as the day progresses This also means more energy throughout the day and no midday crashes so you can become more productive with your time management.
5.Measure your Day
One of the biggest mistakes we make is that we aren’t clear on what is the most effective use of our time.
Not only are we vague about what we should do with our day, but we are blind to what we just did the day before.
Rarely do we look back at the end of the day and say, “Did I make the most effective use of my time today?”
I would ask yourself either at night or the morning after,
- What were the right things I did today?
- What were the wrong things I did today?
- What % of your day is spent doing the right things?
- How does this impact today and what I want to accomplish?
- What should I be doing today after what I learned from yesterday?
It is pretty simple. You need to find out what in your life is detriment to your goals and dreams compared to what is actually getting you there.
Think hard about this. Sometimes the most detrimental things aren’t always the most evident actions. It is often the small things that kill our time. They can be things that seem harmless or even things we enjoy dearly.
Be very judicious with your time and learn from your time management mistakes.
6.Cut out the Minutiae
There seem to be two areas of minutiae that come up often when I talk to people or think about what I am doing in my life: media and chores
Media
Your everyday American watches on average 4 hours of TV a day or 28 hours a week. That is over 1,400 hours a year and over 100,000 hours in a lifetime.
That is a lot of time just staring at a box. This doesn’t even take into account the amount of time spent at the movie theaters or on the internet.
Now I agree we can learn a lot from television, but the History channel never gets the highest ratings.
Most people use those hours to get away and almost go into a trance. I also know that people use the internet for work and other important things like family communication. That is fine.
You just have to ask yourself how much time are you spending and would that time be more productive doing something else.
Think of what you can do with those 4 hours a day of TV when you only need about an hour block for a half hour of exercise.
Famous people don’t mow their lawns. Or at the very least they didn’t get successful by doing it. They became successful because they spent a lot of time building several very specific skill sets.
I don’t say you have to be famous or even want that, but if you want to excel at something, find ways to spend more time doing that one thing that will highly impact achieving your desired goals.
I am taking a stab in the dark. You probably don’t want to be a professional dishwasher, lawn mower, dog walker, or house cleaner. So find ways to move that off of your calendar if possible.
One option is to Delegate to others, whether that is your children or paying others to do those things for you.
I understand money can be scarce, but find ways to delegate even a half hour of your week. It helps others to find some work, helps the economy, and will save your time to put in the most effective areas.
With that said, don’t sacrifice time with the people you love. That should never be delegated. For more interesting thoughts on delegation and time management I would suggest you read Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek.
Well How About That?
Ok these might not have been earth shattering and your mind might not be melting with these 6 points. That is fine. But the truth is that if you take care of your health and deeply evaluate your daily actions, it can go a long way toward being who you want to be.
Hopefully the time you just spent here will help you save time in the future.